On Mon, 22 Dec 2008 05:40:37 GMT, (Graz) wrote:

On Sun, 21 Dec 2008 19:58:41 +0000, Ian Jackson
wrote:

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)"
writes
In article ,
Graz wrote:
You might be able to do it properly via your PC.

I'd be interested to know what's involved.

A PC should have the processing power required to do a pukka standards
conversion. But I dunno if the required software/hardware exists. A Google
might help there.


Using a PC, "just for fun", I've successfully converted PAL TV DVD
recordings to NTSC, and vice versa. But of course, I wasn't starting
with raw video, which is what you would have when the source is a VCR.
With a DVD, you pick the files off the DVD, and transcode them. However,
with a cheap TV video card, you should be able to feed the VCR video
into a PC, and get it into a file format suitable for transcoding. After
that, instead of transferring to tape, burn the finished product to a
DVD (if this is an acceptable alternative).

[Just a note: I have a dirt-cheap Alba DVD player which, when playing an
'NTSC' DVD, the output composite video is switchable between original
video (with the NTSC 3.58MHz subcarrier) and the PAL 4.43MHz. With NTSC
output, the PAL TV set goes to B&W, and the subcarrier is very visible.
This 'feature' is useful for determining if a NTSC-PAL conversion has
actually worked. I'm not sure if the 'feature' works the other way
around. I must check some day.]

The success of my home-made transcodings can only be described as
'fair'. Occasionally, there is a certain amount of 'juddering' because
of the 50Hz-60Hz difference of field frequency. Also, there is a
possibility of the video and audio being a bit out-of-sync.

Incidentally, how common are multi-region DVD players in the USA?
Over here, it seems that many of the cheap brands are multi-region
while the known brands are Region 2 (Europe) only.

If you want to do one tape I sugest to go to a store that does that
type of conversion.